Ahead of the recent Telangana polls, the Congress demanded that the Election Commission should remove from their posts bureaucrats Arvind Kumar and Jayesh Ranjan as well as Somesh Kumar, the chief advisor to the chief minister, alleging that they had been acting as the “private army” of the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi.
Now that the Congress has been voted to power, Ranjan and Arvind Kumar are among bureaucrats who might be transferred after having served in the same positions in the K Chandrashekhar Rao administration since 2015. Somesh Kumar could lose his advisor’s role altogether. He was appointed to the position in May after he voluntarily retired from the post of chief secretary, which he held since 2019.
Congress leaders from Telangana claimed that the Rao government was run by a group of bureaucrats who remained in the same position for several years. The average duration of posting of an Indian Administrative Services officer is about 15 months.
The phenomenon is not unique to Rao and Telangana. Several chief ministers and even the prime minister have bureaucrats in their teams who call the shots on crucial matters of governance. In power they wield, they supersede even cabinet ministers. These bureaucrats are so critical, they get influential positions even after their retirement so that they can continue to help their political benefactors.
The ‘super CMs’
Former Communist Party of India (Marxist) legislator from West Bengal, Sujan Chakraborty told Scroll that favouring a bureaucrat raises concerns of propriety. He pointed to former chief secretary of the state, Alapan Bandopadhyay as an example.
“All important files went to Bandyopadhyay, he headed several committees and the chief minister would often seek reports about departments from him and not the ministers,” said Chakraborty, the leader of the Left Front in the West Bengal Assembly between 2016 and 2021.
In May 2021, hours after Bandyopadhyay retired from his post, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appointed him as her chief advisor. This was after the Centre’s Department of Personnel and Training directed Bandyopadhyay to report for central deputation two days ahead of his retirement after he and Banerjee skipped a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“I doubt the chief minister would have reacted the same way had the Centre targeted someone else,” Chakraborty said.
These views cut across party lines. Chakraborty’s reservations about bureaucrats being favoured by chief ministers is shared by Sanjay Paswan, Bharatiya Janata Party legislator from Bihar. In 2020, Paswan objected to Amir Subhani holding the principal home secretary’s post since Nitish Kumar became Bihar chief minister in 2005. Kumar, who also held the home portfolio, removed Subhani following Paswan’s contentions. But after he severed alliance ties with the BJP in 2022, Subhani was appointed as the chief secretary.
Subhani used his powers to “target members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh”, Paswan alleged. “That’s why we wanted him moved out of the home department. But now, he is in an even more powerful position. Why is he irreplaceable for Kumar?”
The case of a bureaucrat becoming all-powerful in an administration is probably best exemplified by VK Pandian in Odisha. His stature in the state can be gauged by his social media presence. He has more than one million followers on Instagram where he posts videos about initiatives of the state government and of him making speeches at public events.
Journalist Sahasranshu Mahapatra, who has covered Odisha over the last decade, told Scroll, that Pandian could go on to become the next chief minister of the state. “Pandian has now joined the Biju Janata Dal with less than a year to go for the state polls,” he said. “Patnaik is struggling with health concerns and there is nobody else in his family or party who could be called his heir apparent.”
The Biju Janata Dal’s strong presence in Odisha, where it has been in power since 2000, might act as a buffer against political repercussions, if any, of the transition of power. But that’s not the case everywhere. Congress’ defeat in the recent Chhattisgarh elections has raised questions about the importance of Saumya Chaurasia, former deputy secretary to the chief minister in the Congress-led Bhupesh Baghel administration.
“We knew that Chaurasia was the super CM as Baghel trusted her inputs more than those of his ministers,” a former Congress MLA who was denied ticket in this election, told Scroll, on conditions of anonymity. “Now that Baghel has lost the elections, everyone will get to know about it.”
Former finance secretary to the Modi government, Subhash Chandra Garg, described the trend as a “presidential style” of governance, referring to the United States system of a president appointing his own administration. “We are increasingly seeing the offices of chief ministers or the prime minister being all powerful,” he said.
The eyes and ears
Journalist and author Neerja Chowdhury concurs with Garg that most political leaders now prefer to rule via a small coterie of powerful bureaucrats. “Powerful leaders do not always trust even those in their government,” she said. “They have more trust in bureaucrats with whom they have worked closely in the past.”
Chowdhury, the author of the recent book How Prime Ministers Decide, used Modi as an example to elaborate. During his tenure as the Gujarat chief minister, Modi had worked with bureaucrats like AK Sharma, Hasmukh Adhia, GC Murmu, Sanjay Bhavsar and PK Mishra – all of whom were moved to central deputation after he became the prime minister.
“PK Mishra was Modi’s principal secretary in Gujarat since 2001,” she said. “In 2014, Mishra was moved to Delhi to look after the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet which meant Modi had an old hand in charge of making the topmost appointments within the government.”
In 2019, Mishra replaced Nripendra Misra as Modi’s principal secretary. But not before Nripendra Misra, another close aide of Modi, was given an extension after retirement. Even after Nripendra Misra stepped down, he was appointed as the chairperson of the construction committee of the Ram temple in Ayodhya while his son was nominated as a member of the Upper House of Uttar Pradesh.
In his home state of Gujarat, Modi has Kuniyil Kailashnathan as his eyes and ears, who has been given seven extensions since 2013 on the post of chief principal secretary to the chief minister. The post was created to accommodate him after he retired as additional chief secretary to Modi.
“Gujarat is one state where Modi wants a direct channel with the chief minister, so he needs someone like Kailashnathan on whom he has complete confidence,” Chowdhury explained.
Yamini Aiyar, the president of public policy think tank Centre for Policy Research observes that this dependence on powerful bureaucrats is an outcome of centralisation of power in the office of the prime minister or chief ministers. “The powers do not get diffused into ministries as they should,” she explained.